In Love and Water
by HavishamWard
Summary: Spin-off of Katniss and Peeta's In Love and Football... How do two people who are so broken fall in love with each other?


**A/N: Hello! I finally got my story line ready for my spin off of Annie and Finn from my original In Love and Football story. I had planned on making this a one-shot but I decided on a short story instead so you can expect about four chapters for this one. Hope you all enjoy! Please leave a review at the end!**

In Love and Football- Finnick and Annie

Indianapolis… what a strange place.

I moved here just two years ago from Orlando, where even as a high school kid, I had a great job at SeaWorld. But circumstances call for certain sacrifices. So I made one. I got my little brother ready and I packed up everything I could fit into one suitcase, bought two bus tickets and was out of my parent's house faster than you can say… abuse. Because that's what we came from; a mother who spent all her time drinking and bringing random guys home. Most of these guys turned out to be drug dealers and/or pimps.

It started after my dad died when I was fifteen and my brother was only a few weeks old. My mom was depressed and sulked around for a while before she actually started drinking. Then she lost her job and was forced into doing the only thing she knew how to make money and that's where these random guys came in. And mostly, the random guys wouldn't really bother us that much. But right before my eighteenth birthday, random guy number thirty-seven, bothered me in a very bad way. So I got Avery out of bed… he was only two years old then, and we left.

Now, five years later, here I am.

We lived in a crappy hotel while I looked for a job and thankfully with my experience with Dolphins and other animals, the Indianapolis Zoo hired me right away. And after a month, I found us a small apartment downtown right above a bakery. The place is close enough to work and I got a good deal on daycare for Avery when my boss' daughter offered to watch him every day while I was at work. But now that Avery is seven, he's at school.

I've even made a few friends here in my new life. Katniss, Madge and Johanna have all been great friends to me since I met Katniss after she started working for the zoo. I think we clicked right away because we both knew that we were both there because we ran away from something else. So we just understood each other.

And Avery's done well too. He's super smart and already knows he wants to be a doctor someday. I like to think he's turning out this way because of what I did, taking him away from that place. I know it's too late for me, but for him… he can still make something of himself. He's got great friends too and they like to come over and play with their superhero stuff.

So this is what my new life has been like. Normal. Quiet. Safe.

Until one day, when my life would take an unexpected turn, the day that Finnick Odair completely knocks the wind right out of me.

_The trainers finally give us a day off, but what the hell do we do with it? The Zoo! I don't know why the hell Mellark just had to come to the fucking zoo today. The only thing I'm looking forward to is the water and the dolphins. They remind me of Miami. _

_What a joke! He's been after that one girl for over a year now and all he's doing is watch her walk that crazy canal. He's never even made a move—she's probably not even single by now. If it was me, I would forget about her. No girl is worth all that trouble. There's no way that one girl could have me all entranced the way she's got Peeta Mellark. He's never even spoken to her!_

_Don't get me wrong here, I love the ladies! But damn, why get so attached? Maybe it's because my mother left me abandoned on the streets of Miami when I was just a kid, or maybe the countless girls that only liked me for one thing during high school and college. But I just knew that I couldn't—wouldn't be able to trust another female person for as long as I lived._

_So for the past ten years or so, I've kept my distance. Of course, a good hook up every now and then was nice and I often found it was easy for me to do that given my choice of career and my looks._

_But that's just what this is… another pretty face._

_So when we get into the Dolphin Arena, there's a small girl working with a dolphin and judging by the look on Mellark's face, that's the one. Miss No Name that's already got him wrapped around her finger. She's cute, I'll give him that, but damn she looks a little mean. He's got his work cut out for him. And eventually we're all introduced to little Miss Katniss and she's instructed to show us around and show us the dolphins. After a few tricks, Katniss asks if any of us have questions yet. And because, a good friend of Peeta's, I feel it's my responsibility to make her squirm a little._

"_Yeah… cuteness, right?"_

_Right on cue, she squirms and a blush appears her cheeks. She answers my question about how long she's been doing this at the zoo, but I'm too distracted to listen to her response. I've just noticed someone else standing on a platform completely on the other side of the arena. _

_She's tall for a girl, probably only a few inches shorter than me, very thin and pale. Her dark curly hair is back in a long ponytail and it reminds me of curly ribbons of chocolate. She's wearing a red wetsuit top but with black bikini bottoms. Her long legs seem to go on forever and I watch her as she walks the length of the ledge separating one pool from another. She's graceful and beautiful. I've dated plenty of models before and they have similar body types, but none of them have anything on this girl before me. Suddenly, I'm eating my own words and feeling like an idiot for saying that no girl could ever have this effect on me._

_And little do I know that this girl, Annie Cresta, is about to change my life forever._


End file.
